White House tracking website visitors with online ‘fingerprinting’

The White House is tracking visitors to its website, despite proudly promising that WhiteHouse.gov complies with federal privacy laws and does not use cookies. The AddThis tracker is present on every page on the site, according to EFF.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) studied the White House
site for the new type of online tracking system after a new
report by
ProPublica found that the website contained the secretive
spyware.

As RT
previously reported, at least five percent of the internet’s
top 100,000 websites are using canvas fingerprinting, a new kind
tracking technology that is nearly impossible to block using
conventional privacy tools.

Although there is more than one type of canvas fingerprinting,
the most widely used software – and the type used by the White
House – is developed by AddThis, and is reportedly employed on
popular websites like online dating site PlentyOfFish, CBS,
PerezHilton.com and even YouPorn. (A list of known sites using
the software can be found here.)

Here’s how it works: When you visit a website that features such
tracking technology, the site asks your browser to “draw a
hidden image.” Since every computer renders the image in a
different way, that drawing is used to label your device with a
unique number that allows trackers to keep an eye on your
browsing activity across the internet.

An AddThis spokesperson said that the company did not inform the
websites in question when it put its tracking technology in
place. After ProPublica’s original article was published, a
YouPorn spokesperson said the website was unaware the app was
tracking its users and has since removed the AddThis
functionality.

WhiteHouse.gov’s cookie policy promises, “We do not knowingly
use third-party tools that place a multi-session cookie prior to
the user interacting with the tool.” However, EFF found that
the site lists AddThis as being present on some of its pages (but
does not identify which ones). “We have yet to find one
without AddThis, whether open or hidden,” EFF wrote on its
Deeplinks blog.

Since canvas fingerprinting can’t be blocked by normal cookie
management techniques or erased when users delete other cookies,
the White House use of AddThis “is inconsistent with the White
House’s
promise that ‘Visitors can control aspects of website
measurement and customization technologies used on
WhiteHouse.gov’,” EFF wrote.

Tracking users in this way is nothing new. In October 2000, a
congressional review found that, despite a prohibition against
the practice, 13 government agencies were secretly using
technology that tracks the internet habits of people visiting
their websites, and in at least one case providing the
information to a private company, the Associated Press reported.
In August 2009, President Barack Obama announced plans to reverse
a nine-year-old federal policy banning the use of web
technologies to track and compile personal information of online
visitors to federal internet sites, according to
Judicial Watch.

AddThis said it does not use any data it gathers from government
websites. So far, it claims to have only used data for
“internal research and development.”

But relying on the promise from AddThis “is not the best
privacy assurance,” said Princeton computer science
professor Arvind Narayanan, who helped lead the research team
responsible for uncovering the system.

To prevent canvas fingerprinting from being effective, EFF
recommends using its Privacy Badger add-on,
saying it “blocks spying ads and invisible trackers.”
Other options include downloading theTor browser, which helps users
avoid numerous types of online tracking, or blocking JavaScript
from loading in your browser, which ProPublica notes could make
many websites not work properly.

There’s also a browser in the works calledChameleon, which is
specifically designed to block fingerprinting – but at this stage
is only recommended for “tech-savvy users.”